


Vampire Dreams

by AmunetMana



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmunetMana/pseuds/AmunetMana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a vampire that visits John in his sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vampire Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> So I discovered a new show. And a new ship. And promptly exhausted all the fanfiction there was to be found on the subject.
> 
> This, naturally, is what came next.

It is dark, and he is asleep.

 

There are hands on him – softer than he’d expected, but then he hadn’t expected hands at all.

 

But this is sleep –

 

– It must be, because under no other circumstances would he simply lie back, at peace with the stranger with their hands on him.

 

~

 

_“Do you look younger?” McKay says to him one day, and Sheppard shoots him a look._

_“What?”_

_“No you do! He does, doesn’t he?” Rodney turns to the rest of the team, and Ronon and Teyla both turn their eyes on him appraisingly. John shifts under the attention._

_“Maybe you’re just getting old,” he shoots back, and the attention disappears from him as McKay begins spluttering in protest._

_John looks down at the backs of his hands, rough and hard work hands. Same as they have always been, no more, no less._

_No less._

 

~

 

Sooner rather than later, it seems to be the only dream he has anymore, and he never opens his eyes.

 

Maybe it is an illusion, and maybe he should be scared on the gentle pressure of skin on skin, skirting his limbs.

 

Maybe John doesn’t want to know that there’s a reason he can’t bring himself to open his eyes.

 

There is a rasping sound above him, and his eyebrows crease. The fingers are there instantly, and there is a cool pressure on both brow and chest, pressuring his breathing back into calm and tranquillity.

 

John feels at peace, and loved, entirely.

 

He doesn’t open his eyes.

 

~

 

_There are always reasons for him to stay in Atlantis. Well, to be more precise, the Pegasus Galaxy – he’s the best officer they have, as full of energy and experience as he has ever been._

_The experience piles up daily, with no end in sight. His expeditions have the best luck – there is danger, but there is always escape. Always a way to emerge a little wiser, a little more shaken, but whole and intact._

_He is a point of assurance – of continuity. He looks in the mirror, and he is pleased to see he is staving off greys with great success. He has yet to see a single one of the sneaky bastards._

_Once in front of the mirror, he wonders if with a full head of white hair, he’d resemble the half transformed Michael._

_His brain goes no further, a shudder overcoming his body at the thought of Michael, and he shoves that thoughts far away into the corner of things he just doesn’t think about._

_Most wraith things go there._

 

~

 

He speaks out loud –

 

“Why are you here?”

 

– and then he must wake, because his eyes open and there is no one there. No hands, no soft sigh, and an emptiness in the cavity that is his chest.

 

John lies back, turns on his side (although he is always on his back in this dream) and tries to lose his mind to sleep.

 

He tries to tell himself he wants a different dream.

 

(he doesn’t.)

 

(he really doesn’t.)

 

~

 

_They’re performing tests on him because Rodney was right, all that time ago, and John hasn’t even noticed the passing of time as he’s stayed young – maybe even become younger – whilst everyone else ages around him._

_Torren is a young man. Rodney has white and grey peppering his hair. Teyla spends more and more time on her home planet. Ronon is so far unchanged, but now it feels like a when, not an if._

_John can’t tell which way round things fall now – whether he is leaving his friends and team behind, or whether he is the one being left._

_He minds._

_He doesn’t mind – but he minds that he doesn’t. That must count._

 

~

 

He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t let himself.

 

He manages it for so long that ‘sleeping’ becomes ‘collapsing in the middle of meetings’ and he is relegated to the infirmary, where he is made to sleep.

 

It’s a drugged sleep, and he doesn’t dream.

 

~

 

_Todd returns to Atlantis just as the tests really get into their swing, and at first John doesn’t even consider that it might not just be a coincidence. After all, if anything, it would make sense for Todd to schedule for when John wasn’t otherwise occupied, with needles in his arms._

_“John Sheppard,” he greets with a rasp, and runs his hand up John’s arm. “You look well for one in the infirmary.”_

_There’s laughter in his voice, and all the medics are on edge in a way John can’t understand.  Sure Todd’s jokes are crap, but that’s not new. He would have thought everyone would be over it by now. He smirks back at Todd,_

_“They think I’m too pretty to be out in public all the time,” he drawls back, “it distracts everyone too much.” Todd’s teeth are bared in a grin. He looks like he would say more, but Todd is called by a nervous looking diplomat type who’s hovering in the doorway, looking uncomfortably pressed in the opening with more than a few wraith Todd has brought with him. Todd leaves John with one last caress before leaving without another word, and Carson doesn’t wait a second longer than Todd being out of the door before rushing John._

_“Are you alright? Did he do anything? Do you feel any – ”_

_“Woah, woah, Carson,” John protests, rearing back. “What is your deal?”_

_Carson looks at him like he’s a stranger, like he isn’t the one with greying hair and a lined face so different whilst John remains unchanging. The past few minutes march through John’s mind in neat memories; he blinks, understands, and shudders all over. He understands._

_It was Todd’s feeding hand that had pressed into his bare skin, caressing him like one might a lover. Or a pet. John thinks he might be sick – he had barely noticed. He should have noticed._

_He should have understood sooner._

 

~

 

He understands all too well now, and he wishes he didn’t. Before, he was ignorant. Now, he’s complacent. He’s not lying down, not even pretending to be asleep – he’s sat on the edge of his bed (not the hospital bed, not this time). His hands are hanging in his lap, his head tilted down.

 

His eyes are closed – his last line of defence.

 

Finally he hears the door, the slow swirl of air in the room. Silence bears down on him, and John’s lips part like he wants to eat the silence alive, but a weight settles beside him on the bed instead, and the silence halts his breath and stoppers his heart instead.

 

“Why?”

 

It is the word he’s been looking for, far more than the _why_ or the _how_ – those he knew long ago, despite whatever he might tell himself.

 

“We are brothers, you and I,” the wraith rumbles back, soft and gentle at his side, and John is full of a love he can never trust in as his wraith cups his face gently, and guides him down to the bed. The hand doesn’t come to his chest immediately, and John learns it can be worse.

 

His wraith would feed him life force he doesn’t deserve – the life of every human John has failed to save – whilst he sleeps, unaware. Gentle kisses, brushes of lips careful enough to know the damage teeth like razors can do, slow and agonisingly sweet, these the wraith saves for when John is awake.

 

 

_It’ll be easier when they’re all dead. Then there will be nothing to miss._

 

 

John doesn’t know who said that. Life flows into him, fresh and sweet and completely undeserved, and he arches up, an involuntary arc, and his wraith catches the back of his head. John is supported and entangled, and the next he knows, he is holding the wraith in his own way too. There are fistfuls of cloth in his fingers, for all he can’t see through closed eyelids, and there is the tremor of breath between them. He wants furiously to hurt the wraith so he feels like he’s being burned alive by the life force he doesn’t deserve. He wants to pull the wraith down with him, bind the two of them together so the intruder – his ghost, his vampire stalker – can’t be gone by morning.

 

John supposes if he did that, he’d have to blind himself if he wanted to even consider going on living.

 

It’s an eternity before his wraith lays him down gently, fingers threading through his hair, across his cheek and down to trace the old scar of the feeding wound. His mark.

 

John opens his eyes –

 

– there’s no one there.

 

His hands are empty.

 

 

It’s better that way.

 

~

 

_He doesn’t tell, anyway._

_He could –_

_He should –_

_Everything hurts. He hates it. Because nothing hurts in that way anymore. He knows what he’s looking for now, and he is strong and young and could go on mission after mission and survive, and laugh in the face of death, not because he is skilled but because he is protected._

_It hurts how much he_ wants _. Wants all the things he mustn’t ever have._

_He can see the future Todd wants now. The wraith may play and demure at peace talks, mind his manners and treat with other humans, but he is ancient, and he knows how to play the long game. John knows what it will mean for him, and he will be happy and content, and immortal by Todd’s side._

_He’s not so sure he’ll be John Sheppard anymore._

_He’s even less sure that he has a choice._

~

 

The wraith takes John’s hands in his, and there is a rustle – John thinks the wraith has knelt before him. How romantic.

 

“They’re all gone, John Sheppard. There is nothing left for you here.”

 

John doesn’t remember them going. But in these moments, a thousand years could pass, and take up only a single breath.

 

“What do you want from me?” he asks, and the grip on his hands tightens. The feeding slit rests beneath his fingers. If John presses his fingertips down, they will be enveloped. The might even get enzyme on them – John could lick them clean. Maybe it would give him the false courage he needs. “What do you want in return?”

 

“Loyalty. I don’t expect gratitude. And I know love will take time.”

 

His wraith was faster to answer than John expected, somehow. John snorts, a softer sound than he knows. He won’t call it a sob.

 

Time. Time enough for anything now, he supposes.

 

“Will you take me away?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Will you let me forget?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Even if I beg you not to?”

 

“…I won’t let you hate yourself.”

 

 

_Then you won’t let me be myself._

_But you haven’t left me that option for a long time._

John Sheppard opens his eyes.

 

“I won’t look back,” he tells the wraith kneeling before him, and wonders if he understands.

 

 

 Todd smiles.

 

 

John guesses not.


End file.
